With email lists and such on the Web, almost anybody can get an audience these days — poetry, reminiscences, anecdotes and bad puns are all catered for. So let's stop kidding ourselves: if we are writing for publication in any serious way, it is because we want some audience to enjoy what we are saying and how we say it.
Writers are like engineers — given a choice between an overseas holiday, a pay rise or an award plaque to hang on the wall, the average engineer will take the plaque, and writers are much the same. They crave awards, plaudits and applause, and because I am being brutally honest, I have had a few minor awards too, and some nice reviews, and I am greatly pleased with them. We won't talk about the silly reviews just yet . . . and maybe not at all. Nobody ever erected a statue to a critic, said Sibelius, but nobody ever erected one to me, either.
You write so people will read you. Every time you hear somebody speak of a "famous writer", ask yourself: "where would that famous writer be without lots of famous readers like me?". I have been a famous reader since I was very young, and I suppose, in a way, I am writing for all the me clones there are out there. If I can touch people's thinking in some way, I suppose I have succeeded.
Bottom line: I write because I enjoy it.